slowly towards him across the grass. When she reached a tree about ten
feet distant, against which she leaned, Monsieur Fanjat said to the
colonel in a low voice,--

"Take out, adroitly, from my right hand pocket some lumps of sugar you
will feel there. Show them to her, and she will come to us. I will
renounce in your favor my sole means of giving her pleasure. With
sugar, which she passionately loves, you will accustom her to approach
you, and to know you again."

"When she was a woman," said Philippe, sadly, "she had no taste for
sweet things."

When the colonel showed her the lump of sugar, holding it between the
thumb and forefinger of his right hand, she again uttered her little
wild cry, and sprang toward him; then she stopped, struggling against
the instinctive fear he caused her; she looked at the sugar and turned
away her head alternately, precisely like a dog whose master forbids
him to touch his food until he has said a letter of the alphabet which
he slowly repeats. At last the animal desire triumphed over fear.
Stephanie darted to Philippe, cautiously putting out her little brown
hand to seize the prize, touched the fingers of her poor lover as she
snatched the sugar, and fled away among the trees. This dreadful scene
overcame the colonel; he burst into tears and rushed into the house.

"Has love less courage than friendship?" Monsieur Fanjat said to him.
"I have some hope, Monsieur le baron. My poor niece was in a far worse
state than that in which you now find her."

"How was that possible?" cried Philippe.